Opportunity outweighs digital adoption costs
Wolters Kluwer: E-contracting up 31% YoY in Q4
The opportunities that come with a digital workflow in the equipment finance industry now exceed the cost to adopt new technology.
These opportunities include e-assets that accelerate liquidity, enhance cost recovery and maintain a continuous process, Eric Capehart, associate director of market strategy for Wolters Kluwer’s digital lending solutions, told Equipment Finance News.
“For those organizations that may have a little bit of that hesitancy [to adopt new tech], especially if there are several decision makers within the organization, it becomes kind of an internal sales piece,” Capehart told EFN.
Still, rising technology costs are a concern for lenders, with some, such as Madison Capital, ceasing direct financing operations due, in part, to higher tech costs, according to a Madison Capital release.
Utilizing lending technology
Lenders are using new technologies like AI to streamline the financing process, Kit West, business development director at Wheatland, Wyo.-based C.H. Brown, said during the Feb. 11 Equipment Finance News webinar, “Dealers and Lenders: Solving Shared Challenges
“We’ve started implementing some AI tools for document verification, for bank statements, IDs and tax statements, so that’s starting to build in,” West said. “We haven’t done much on the credit decision side, as far as AI goes, we still have a lot of eyeballs look at each deal but, for the verification side, we use it to verify the docs just to prevent fraud.”
Wolters Kluwer’s e-contracting index increased 31% year over year in Q4, while the four-year trend shows a sustained growth trend of 26% in digital adoption since Q4 2020, Wolters Kluwer’s Capehart said.
Equipment financiers “will quickly learn that [digital transformation] is a little bit of an upfront hurdle, but in the long run, it pays off.”
The third annual Equipment Finance Connect at the JW Marriott Nashville on May 14-15, 2025, is the only event for both equipment dealers and finance providers. Learn more and register here.
